NRC in NYC
Lindsay Wells, Publicity Director
As a college senior anxiously planning for post-graduation life, what better way is there to get my burning questions answered than going directly to the source? Early last Wednesday morning, ten North Road Communications members, including myself, took a train to New York City to visit two established PR and IMC firms to pick their brains about agency life and how to stand out while applying to full-time positions.
After fueling up at Starbucks, we visited Turner, a full-service public relations agency dedicated to working with travel, health, and lifestyle clients, such as Bombas, Pure Barre, and Supra. Kate Kulczyk, Senior Director of Active Lifestyle, shared with us Turner’s capabilities and branding before taking us through successful case studies they’ve done, such as Finding Bermuda’s Adventurous Side for Bermuda’s Tourism Authority and Axe Throwing Workshops for Duluth Trading Company. Later, Kulczyk clued us into some major industry trends that Turner has noticed, for instance, the use of brand personalities as thought leaders for pitch angles as well as an increase in popularity of pitching to targeted local and regional outlets. As for our questions about getting hired, she said not to discount transferrable skills that we’ve learned doing summer jobs, like learning customer service from a retail job or problem solving from a waitress job. The key to landing that job, she recommended, is to be hungry and resourceful.
NRC members visiting Turner PR showroom.
Soon after, we made our way to our next agency, M Booth. M Booth is a highly branded public relations agency with a diversified portfolio of clients categorized from B2B to wine and spirits. Chief People Officer Jody Johnson led us through the overview of M Booth, their clients, and their values, including their mantra “courageous accountable fun everyday,” before introducing us to a Marist alumna and Account Supervisor, Megan Hunsicker. Megan took us through her journey from Marist student to successful public relations professional and eased (most of) our post-grad fears by advising us to stay focused, consistent, and patient in our job search. Lastly, we met Jennifer Oliver, the Talent Manager at M Booth who shared pearls of wisdom about the applications process from a human resources perspective. Mainly, to make sure that our LinkedIn pages are in tip-top shape, meaning that they exactly match our resumes, have writing samples embedded in them, and have tagged our profiles with relevant buzzwords, such as industry sections and client names.
We ended the day with a train ride back to Poughkeepsie, where we will surely apply and internalize all of our experiences and advice we received. The only unanswered question we have left is, when are we doing more agency tours?